This is the 37th instalment of #deanehistory.
Dunkirk is well known to the British for very good reason. Less well known to us, but not to the Dunkerqueois, is the story of Jean Bart, the foremost French corsair.
Dunkirk is well known to the British for very good reason. Less well known to us, but not to the Dunkerqueois, is the story of Jean Bart, the foremost French corsair.
When this part of coastal northern France belonged to the Spanish Netherlands, Jean Bart was born into a seafaring family. Aged 12, he joined the Dutch Navy, to fight the British, who were occupying Dunkirk.
He learned his trade with the Dutch and learned it well. But soon enough Dunkirk was French, & the 1672 war between France & the Netherlands began, so he fought for the French. Denied a commission as they were then restricted to the nobility, he became a privateer.
In the Nine Years War, most easily understood as France against all comers, he distinguished himself.
1st, captured by the English, he was imprisoned at Plymouth. He & a small band of comrades not only escaped; they rowed to Brittany in a stolen rowing boat.
1st, captured by the English, he was imprisoned at Plymouth. He & a small band of comrades not only escaped; they rowed to Brittany in a stolen rowing boat.
2ndly, he showed the reach of the French navy in a way cynics might think designed to put the wind up us. Breaking the Dunkirk blockade, he sailed to Scotland, burning villages before popping home again. If he could get there, coastal Brits must have thought, he can get anywhere.
3rdly, he was a terror to the Dutch. With a small fleet of six vessels, he again smashed through a blockade, captured 130 ships loaded with wheat, and returned them to famine-struck France, where the starving people of Paris cried out in the streets at the news of his success.
Louis IV realised his merits, made him a Commodore and raised him to the nobility. He went on to become an Admiral.
The Peace of Ryswick put paid to his active service – visions of a buccaneering Admiral morosely scuffing the turf with his hands in his pockets, muttering Bedknobs and Broomsticks style “we ain’t gonna have no fun no more” are plainly impertinent.
Sadly he died young, in 1702, aged 51. He is, of course, buried in Dunkirk.
Over the years, fully thirty ships of the French Navy have been proud to bear the name Jean Bart.
Over the years, fully thirty ships of the French Navy have been proud to bear the name Jean Bart.
Strange he's so unknown by us Brits. Heaven forbid it’s as he always came out on top! Think of him next time you're in Dunkirk’s Place Jean-Bart, listening to the belfry play the Jean Bart tune, eating the chocolate, coffee cream & almond biscuits known as “doigts de Jean Bart”.
Of course, generally we don't do pictures in #deanehistory threads. But when it comes to chocolate... (salute: auxdoigtsdejeanbart.com) 
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